


Chasing His Tail

by ckret2



Category: Hazbin Hotel (Web Series)
Genre: Alliances, Asexual Alastor (Hazbin Hotel), Bisexual Sir Pentious, Brief Sexual Content, Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Behavior, Canon-Typical Violence, Contemplating Sexual Orientation, Fantasizing, Feelings Realization, Fluff and Humor, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, M/M, One-Sided Attraction, Period-Typical Homophobia, Possibly Unrequited Love, Posts fic; immediately changes name because roomie suggested better one, Pre-Canon, Secret Crush, Sexual Fantasy, Unresolved Sexual Tension, assuming your definition of fluff can include a lot of murder
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-09
Updated: 2020-02-09
Packaged: 2021-02-28 00:48:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,257
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22625050
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ckret2/pseuds/ckret2
Summary: There was nothing, in Sir Pentious's opinion, that was sadder than a zealous survivalist doomsday cult... in Hell. But when Sir Pentious was looking to stock the emergency supply cache of a newly-completed airship, raiding a properly dug-in doomsday cult was one-stop shopping.Sir Pentious had a newly-completed airship.He also had a Radio Demon.... And, he'd just discovered, the Radio Demon had a tail.Sir Pentious had never been so fascinated by anything in his afterlife.
Relationships: Alastor/Sir Pentious (Hazbin Hotel)
Comments: 30
Kudos: 211





	Chasing His Tail

**Author's Note:**

> This is technically set in the same verse as [Cold Day In Hell](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21776062) but like if you don't wanna go read it literally the only things you need to know are: 1) in this verse Sir Pentious and Alastor were allies in the 50s and early 60s; and 2) Alastor used to be a lot more secretive with handing out details about his history, which is why Sir Pentious doesn't know his name yet. (If you _have_ read Cold Day In Hell, this fits into the continuity roundabouts the late 50s.)
> 
> I kept referring to historical things/songs/sound effects in the fic so I listed all the references in the end notes.

There was nothing, in Sir Pentious's opinion, that was sadder than a zealous survivalist doomsday cult... in Hell.

What did the survivalists think they were going to survive? They were already dead. That was one of the plus sides to being in Hell! When you're plummeting toward rock bottom, you know you can't get any lower than six feet under. Nothing will ever get worse.

But there was one thing to be said in the favor of doomsday survivalists: they were great hoarders. Sheet metal, guns and gun powder and bullets, barrels of fresh water, canned food... Why, when Sir Pentious was looking to stock the emergency supply cache of a newly-completed airship, raiding a properly dug-in doomsday cult was one-stop shopping.

Sir Pentious had a newly-completed airship.

He also had a Radio Demon.

"Look at this! It's been a while since I've seen one of these!" The Radio Demon lifted a grenade from the hand of a recently-severed arm. "Not quite up to the Army's standards, but—" He tilted his head with the crackle of a changing station as he examined the grenade. "Hold on. Is this made out of a teapot?"

Sir Pentious pressed his forehead to his bubble-like window to try to see. He was field testing his prototype for a new bipedal walking tank, figuring that the cult would be a soft enough target that he wouldn't have to worry about the tank taking any real damage. He never got an opportunity to go out on the field these days, and hoped this walking tank could change that—but it did come at the expense of a wide field of view. "Let me see!"

The Radio Demon obligingly held up the grenade.

Sir Pentious studied it. "I believe it _is_ a teapot," he said.

"I admire their creativity." The Radio Demon's ears twitched and he turned to glance across the indoor shooting range they'd been raiding for weapons. "Uh-oh. I think we're about to have company."

"You hear people coming?" That was another downside Sir Pentious had already discovered: the tank was far too soundproofed. He could maintain contact with his accomplice via radio—of course—but anything else was at best distant and muffled, and more often completely inaudible.

"No, an alarm outside." The Radio Demon strode across the shooting range to the exit door, precariously twirling the grenade by its pin as he went.

An alarm! Far too soundproofed indeed! "I'll have to add microphones to the outside of my tank," he muttered to himself. Without a spotter like the Radio Demon here to listen for any threats, he'd be functionally deaf in this tin can. He'd work on those microphones when he added in radar and heat sensors.

He followed the Radio Demon to the door and crouched to see through. Armed cultists were swarming in the open square between the compound's utilitarian buildings, searching for the cause of the alarm.

Tossing the grenade up and down in one hand, the Radio Demon asked, "Do you mind? I've always wanted to play with one of these."

"Then by all means." Sir Pentious stood the tank back up and gestured with one machine gun-laden arm toward the door.

"Very generous of you, sir." The Radio Demon pulled the pin, tossed the grenade straight above himself—Sir Pentious said, "Radio, I don't think you're supposed to—" and then swung his microphone cane upside down like a golf club to hit the falling grenade. Over the radio there was a whine of static feedback from the collision, and then the sound of a slide whistle descending as the grenade flew toward its target.

The sound of the explosion was a dull, distant rumble, barely audible through the tank's thick walls. The Radio Demon's perpetual grin broadened in excitement. For all that the Radio Demon claimed to be easily bored, his standards for entertainment were charmingly low. Sir Pentious was beginning to wonder whether he sometimes feigned boredom as an excuse to ask for an invitation along on Sir Pentious's expeditions.

"That got their attention," he reported. "But I don't think they can tell where it came from. Care to do the honors?"

"Gladly! Stay clear. I haven't tried this one yet." He glanced at the cheat sheet of pre-programmed combat techniques he'd fastened with a magnet to a wall, and punched in the code for a lunging punch.

The tank performed the punch flawlessly, busting a massive hole in the wall. Sir Pentious, however, slammed face first into the bubble window. Ow. When Sir Pentious could see through the pain, the Radio Demon's face was five inches from his on the other side of the window. He was biting his lips and squinting his eyes with the effort of trying not to laugh. This did nothing to prevent the Radio Demon's imaginary invisible Greek chorus from laughing over the tank's radio.

With all the dignity he could muster, Sir Pentious said, "The cockpit could use some stabilization." He peeled himself off the window and painfully got back in his seat.

"Have you considered a harness on your seat there?"

"Heavens, no! What if the tank catches fire and I can't get the harness open?"

"What if you try to throw a punch and fling yourself into your own window?"

Sir Pentious gave the Radio Demon a dirty look, then was distracted by clattering pinging noises like hail on the roof of an airship. The cultists had started firing at them. The Radio Demon sauntered somewhere behind the walking tank like he was just checking out the view back there and not like he was sheltering himself from the gunfire—the big faker—and Sir Pentious noted with some satisfaction that the bullets ricocheted off his window without so much as leaving a scratch.

He advanced into the light of day, easily mowing down cultists with two of the tank's machine guns. Several of the sinners turned and fled. Yes, people usually had that reaction to his newest inventions. Back in life, he'd often tried to establish a perimeter that contained his targets to ensure there were no survivors to warn the wider world about his latest toys, just to keep them a surprise as long as possible—but, pfff, this was Hell. They'd _all_ be survivors after a couple of weeks to recover, wouldn't they?

But, all the same... "Hey, Radio. Pick off the cowards, would you?" Dead men told no tales, but it took a while for comatose men to start gossiping.

"I was hoping you'd ask."

Sir Pentious couldn't see what the Radio Demon was doing behind him, but whatever it was caused a couple more cultists to flee and somehow reduced the brightness of the sun. Every once on a while, he saw a moving shadow or a flash of red light along the edge of his vision. The narrow field of view really _was_ an annoyance. Note to self, add mechanical eyes to increase his range of view from inside the tank to the list of necessary improvements.

Each time the Radio Demon took someone out, a member of his invisible Greek chorus announced it over the radio with a comically over-the-top dying wail of pain. The first time, Sir Pentious rolled his eyes. The third time, he fought back a snort. The tenth time, he was trying to keep his wheezes of laughter quiet enough that his end of the radio wouldn't pick it up.

It only took a couple of moments to clear out most of the combatants swarming the compound's grounds. Hopping up the stairs three at a time, the Radio Demon lightly ascended onto a platform in the center of the compound that was high enough to put Sir Pentious at eye level with his waist. (No doubt, the platform was probably used by the cult leader to deliver sermons—or whatever it was they did here. Demand sacrifices, maybe.) "Don't look now," the Radio Demon said, "but I think they're about to bring out their own heavy artillery." The Radio Demon pointed with his cane toward a building, larger and sturdier than the rest, where a metal door was rolling open to reveal a pickup that had been crudely modified into a tank.

Sir Pentious scoffed. "They're joking."

"Poor joke," the Radio Demon said, lacing his hands on top of his microphone cane and glancing back to Sir Pentious to roll his eyes. "Here you are advertising the next stage of evolution in warfare and they've managed to invent a never-before-seen step backwards."

Sir Pentious eyed the cannon crudely welded to the truck's roof. "All the same, the prototype isn't designed to take artillery quite that heavy." He'd designed it to take bullets, but he hadn't wanted to use more expensive materials on a version of the tank that he'd made mainly just to test how it handled. He raised one of the tank's arms alongside the Radio Demon, pointing it toward the truck. "And I've been meaning to test this one anyway." The Radio Demon looked at it curiously.

Sir Pentious tapped in an authorization code, pressed a button, and his walking tank automatically adjusted its footing to brace itself as a rocket launched from the barrel in the arm. The rocket sprayed a trail of furious red flames and crashed into the truck with a spectacular burst of gold and pink sparks.

The resultant explosion was more impressive than Sir Pentious had expected. Either that pickup had several spare canisters of gas, or its own ammo was explosive and had been set off. Either way, the erupting pickup blew away half of the building, which exploded as well, sending a plume of fire into the sky and a blast of howling wind in every direction.

Sir Pentious was not watching the explosion.

Just in front of him, the Radio Demon was standing cool and collected, utterly unperturbed in the face of the explosion, hands still on his cane, long hair and coattail billowing back in the wind.

He had a deer tail.

The same color as his hair, an unnatural bright red that darkened to deep reddish brown on the underside. Neatly curled down along the seat of his pants.

A tail.

He had a tail.

It was right there. On his butt.

Sir Pentious had never been so fascinated by anything in his afterlife.

He wasn't shaken from his thoughts until the Greek chorus began playing "Taps" over the radio in honor of the pickup truck tank.

Sir Pentious rolled his eyes. "Oh, stop that."

When the Radio Demon turned to face him, his eyes were wide open and his smile had stretched so broad it almost looked painful.

(Sometimes—particularly when he smiled _just_ like that—Sir Pentious was reminded of exactly how young the Radio Demon was. He had to have been, what, certainly no older than his mid-thirties when he'd died? And that hadn't even been thirty years ago. That smile made him look younger. In spite of the vast supernatural powers the Radio Demon had wrapped around his oh so expressive fingers, he was still entertained by the simple explosive power of a grenade or a rocket. In a way, it reminded Sir Pentious of himself, back in the late sixties, the first time he'd reduced a multi-story building to shrapnel.)

"What! Was! _That!_ " The Radio Demon pressed both hands against the tank's window as if trying to reach through and grab Sir Pentious's shoulders. "Goodness me, _what_ a display! It looked nearly like a fireworks show!"

"That would be because I added some fireworks in the rocket," Sir Pentious said, leaning an elbow against the window frame and propping his cheek against his knuckles, smirking wickedly.

The Radio Demon stared at him, grinning mouth slightly open, blinking in bafflement, dead air hissing through the speaker. He tilted his head with a crackle of static. "Why did you do that?"

"For the aesthetics, of course." He prodded the window with one fingertip, pointing toward the Radio Demon's chest. "What's the point of launching a rocket if you're not putting on a show for someone?"

"All this," the Radio Demon gestured behind himself with his cane, " _pour moi_?" Another crackle and a snatch of some melodic harp tune. "It's not very often I'm the audience instead of the performer."

"You did asked to be entertained, didn't you?"

"I—Oh! So I did." The Radio Demon knocked the heel of his palm against his forehead; his laugh almost sounded self-conscious. "Well! Well done."

Sir Pentious tried not to laugh as well as he leaned back from the window, lounging regally in his seat as though it were a throne. "I should say it was."

On some level, he was still thinking about the Radio Demon's tail.

###

In the end, there was nothing in the compound worth stealing but a bit of canned food. The guns were ancient and even the metal sheets used for roofing weren't worth salvaging for spare scrap, as poor quality as they were. The teapot grenade should have been a giveaway.

But they _did_ find a map that marked this location out as a _Gamma Site._ The map marked several other sites—Beta, Delta, and Epsilon—as well as an Alpha Site not far away, buried deep in a mountain range, marked with a star. Maybe that was where the cult leader and the good equipment were kept.

While Sir Pentious raided shelves and filing cabinets looking for more information on the main site, the Radio Demon played with the compound's radio setup—and, when he really got bored, sat on the radio's table and started singing into the microphone.

"Cut that out," Sir Pentious grumbled. "You're going to alert the other sites to the fact that something's gone wrong here."

The Radio Demon stopped singing with a sound like a needle scratching across a record. "I wouldn't do that to you," he said. "I switched off their usual broadcast frequency first."

"Oh, fine." He waved a hand permissively. "If you must." He liked the singing anyway.

The Radio Demon continued his song—something about being a freakish man (how fitting)—and after a moment to look over all the papers he'd found, Sir Pentious sighed and started stacking them all together.

The Radio Demon stopped singing again. "Not going to look them over now?"

"I can do it on my ship tonight," Sir Pentious said. "I'm sick of trying to slither around this room, they've left nuts and bolts and splinters all over the floor."

"Apparently they don't entertain many snakes."

"Apparently not!"

That, and when the Radio Demon was singing, Sir Pentious found it difficult to concentrate on reading.

They agreed to meet again at six the next morning. Sir Pentious dropped the Radio Demon off on the outskirts of a nearby town, where he cheerily claimed that he would be whiling away the night hours somewhere "where there's women, wine, and song"—which was as bald-faced a lie as Sir Pentious had ever heard. For all the tough attitude the Radio Demon put on, Sir Pentious has seen him in action enough times to know how drained he got when he pulled out his bigger powers; and he'd been all but teetering on his feet on the ride in to town. Sir Pentious suspected he wasn't going to do anything that night but devour a whole rack of ribs and pass out for ten hours straight.

And _women._ Pff. The thought. Sir Pentious had once seen a prostitute hit on the Radio Demon for an hour straight without the Radio Demon once realizing that she was not, in fact, actually interested in the violin he had at the table with him. Sir Pentious had slipped her a few bucks in gratitude for the entertaining show, although it probably wasn't the sort of entertainment she was used to offering.

Meanwhile, Sir Pentious would be spending the evening going over the documents he'd taken from the cult's compound and making what quick adjustments he could to his walking tank prototype.

###

That had been the plan, anyway.

That wasn't what happened.

What happened was he spent hours listlessly attempting to go through the documents without so much as registering whether he was looking at names of residents or inventories of supplies, before giving up in frustration and turning to his tank.

And then he spent hours distractedly attempting to make adjustments while forgetting exactly what adjustments he was attempting to make and accidentally undoing them, before deciding he was too tired to make any changes without breaking something and going to bed.

Where he spent hours laying on his back on top of his covers, staring at the ceiling.

Thinking about the Radio Demon's tail.

 _Still_ thinking about Radio Demon's tail.

Behind locked doors, in his room, in the dark, in that moment, on that night, there was nothing in the universe that Sir Pentious wanted more than to see his tail again.

And run his fingers through its short fur.

And grab it hard enough to make the Radio Demon gasp white noise.

And use it as leverage to jerk the Radio Demon's hips back against his own as he fucked his ass hard.

Sir Pentious pulled a pillow over his face and whined in frustration.

All right. Was this the point where he admitted to himself that he'd been repressing this a while?

No! No, he hadn't been repressing anything. Yes, he _did_ enjoy the Radio Demon's company. And yes, he enjoyed it far more than he'd expected to when he'd first approached him to propose the non-aggression pact that had evolved into their current carnage-causing collaborations. But he hadn't enjoyed his company in a _lustful_ way.

Perhaps it _was_ true that Sir Pentious admired his quick humor, his effortless facility with words, his infinite capacity to converse on any subject. And he was impressed by his broad musical talent: his singing, his skill with multiple instruments—Sir Pentious was sure he hadn't found out all the instruments the Radio Demon could play yet—and his ability to conduct a whole chamber orchestra of phantasmal shadows. And _that_ brought up his skill with magic, surely evidence that the Radio Demon possessed a more than respectable education in fields Sir Pentious himself had never even explored. And there was his delightful dismissal of conventional morality, as well as his murderous hobbies. And the way he tilted his head when he flitted between mental stations. And the heart-stopping way his eyes lit up when something excited him enough to make him _really_ smile. And the way his suit clung so flatteringly to his—

Yes. Yes, Sir Pentious had definitely been repressing this a while.

He groaned into his pillow again. And then picked it up off his face and plopped it down onto his tail below his hips. And then turned over, face down. And then rolled his hips to grind into his mattress, the motion traveling like a wave along the entire length of his tail.

Okay. He wasn't going to be getting any sleep, was he.

Without lifting his head, he reached over to rummage in the top drawer of his nightstand for a jar of vaseline; he focused on the mental image of one hemipenis buried deep in the Radio Demon's ass, and tried to decide whether he preferred imagining the other one bent low to frot against the Radio Demon's, or bent up to rub through the fur of his pretty little tail.

Almost as an afterthought, Sir Pentious set the vaseline down on his nightstand long enough to turn on the radio and tune it to an empty, static-filled station.

###

Six in the morning and the Radio Demon was late. No surprise. He always agreed to early hours no matter his condition, and never kept them when he'd exhausted himself the day before. But he always showed up with a gift and used it as the excuse for why he'd been late, so Sir Pentious preemptively forgave him and expected him to actually show up any time between six-thirty and nine.

Nevertheless, Sir Pentious was up, ready, and waiting at six. He'd showered—more thoroughly than usual. He'd compensated for the sleep deprivation by sticking five tea bags in his cup like some kind of barbarian and adding in a dose of Vin Mariani. He'd had breakfast, with the kitchen door locked, to keep out the more creepily masochistic Egg Bois who tended to watch with naked envy when he ate his poached eggs. He'd dressed, electing to leave his hat behind for the day to ensure that it wouldn't inadvertently telegraph his newly-realized... sentiments. If anyone asked about the omission, he could say that the tank's cockpit felt crowded with a top hat on. And he'd gathered together the documents they'd stolen from the compound to go over while he waited.

He did not go over the documents.

He thought about the Radio Demon.

He was irritated.

Oh, he never enjoy falling for men. It was so much trickier than falling for women. So much _riskier_. If he made romantic overtures toward a disinterested woman, the worst he had to fear was a kick wherever she thought his privates were hidden—and most people aimed high. If he made romantic overtures toward a disinterested man, the worst he had to fear was a shotgun to the face and an attempt to slander him across half the nine circles. He considered himself fortunate that nine times out of ten, when someone caught his eye, it was a woman.

But there was always that inconvenient one-tenth, wasn't there. And it was never just some random man on the street who caught his fancy whom he could incorporate into his midnight fantasies for the next week. No, it was always someone he was close to. There was probably some underlying psychological reason for that that he had no interest in examining at the crack of dawn after a poor night's sleep.

Whatever the reason—it was an enormous inconvenience. Pursuing a man always meant risking that the target of his affections would turn vicious and vile.

But the Radio Demon wouldn't do that to him.

Sir Pentious was _sure_ of that. His friends or acquaintances or allies (it was so hard to figure out how close he really considered people) were evidence enough of that.

Sir Pentious had seen the Radio Demon perform piano accompaniment to a vaudeville skit by a performer who dressed as a woman on stage and a man off stage, without giving off any evidence that he even noticed the change except that he effortlessly switched between referring to the performer as "this fine fellow" or "this lovely lady" depending on the current costume. He'd seen a man too drunk to recognize whom he was talking to weave up to the Radio Demon and ask which way the gay bars were, and not only had the Radio Demon immediately pointed him in the right direction, he'd also mentioned which ones ought to have live music that night. He'd seen the Radio Demon examine a photograph from a sapphic wedding Sir Pentious had attended several years before and skipped straight past the inevitable and moronic "Double wedding? Sisters? Best friends? Bride and bridesmaid? Where are the grooms?" questions to immediately start referring to them as "the couple"—which seemed like it shouldn't be much to expect from someone, but Sir Pentious had discovered exasperatingly often that it was.

And even so— _even so_ —with this _bountiful_ evidence to work with—Sir Pentious had absolutely no idea what the Radio Demon's tastes were. He'd never heard him mention a prior spouse or lover or fling or affair—whether feminine, masculine, otherwise, or undisclosed. He'd never seen the Radio Demon eye anyone, never heard him admire anyone. The only references the Radio Demon ever made to romance in any form came with what Sir Pentious more and more easily recognized as a sardonic quirk to his mouth and a roll of his eyes, as if to say _can you imagine? me?_ And half the time Sir Pentious later found out the romantic references he'd made were actually song lyrics. (Now he was wondering about that "women, wine, and song" quip last night.)

So it was clear enough that the Radio Demon was comfortable in the company of the likes of Achilles, Sappho, and Tiresias; whether he was a part of their Hellenic camp or just a cordial visitor remained to be seen. But at any rate, it meant that if he was made aware of Sir Pentious's interest and didn't return it, he would no doubt treat Sir Pentious the exact same way he treated the few women courageous enough to express an interest in him:

He'd be oblivious. And then he'd be confused. And then he'd be mildly alarmed. And then he'd turn it down in such a way that made it clear that not only did he have no interest, there was no possible universe in which he could ever have interest. But _cordially_. Probably with a couple of awkward attempts at jokes to disguise his own discomfort with being suddenly singled out by a heart-shaped spotlight.

Oh, Sir Pentious didn't think he could stand being on the receiving end of one of the Radio Demon's uncomfortable stop-looking-at-me-like-that jokes.

Well. It was reassuring to think that, if the Radio Demon _did_ find out, it wasn't going to end in a physical and/or political altercation.

Nevertheless, Sir Pentious wasn't going to tell him. Not until and unless he knew, at a _minimum_ , that there was a _chance_ he might reciprocate, and ideally not until he had some _evidence_. Their alliance was worth too much to risk on a wild chance.

The intercom nearest to the airship's loading doors crackled on by itself. "Morning! I'm not late, am I?"

Sir Pentious mentally scolded his heart for skipping a beat. Absolutely unseemly. At a minimum, he ought to be able to handle this situation like a gentleman and a professional.

He checked his pocket watch. It was a quarter til seven. Honestly better than he'd been expecting. "Only fashionably late." He punched a button to open the doors and reel out a long metal ladder.

There was a pause. "Not going to land for me to board?"

"Half past six would have been a little bit _more_ fashionable. Start climbing."

The intercom played a sad trombone noise. "Okay."

Sir Pentious suppressed a wheeze of laughter. It probably wasn't audible over the wind, anyway.

When he finally reached the top and the doors had shut, the first thing the Radio Demon said was, "You're trying to make me regret picking you up something nice on the way here." He exaggeratedly smoothed his windblown hair back into place.

And there was the expected gift. "Oh? What is it?"

With a flourish of one hand like a magician turning a playing card into a dove, the Radio Demon pulled a clear corked bottle, no larger than a perfume bottle, out of the air and offered it over. "Thought of you."

He held up the bottle and squinted into it. "... Is that a dead snake?"

"Snake-infused whiskey! Apparently it gives it an interesting flavor, didn't get a chance to sample it myself."

He'd given a snake a bottle of dead snake to drink. Sir Pentious was deciding whether he should be offended or horrified before remembering that one time he'd seen the Radio Demon make red beans and rice with venison sausage—and he'd gone on for a good couple of minutes about how a _proper_ venison sausage really didn't work without a casing made out of human intestines. It had probably not occurred to him in the slightest to check whether Sir Pentious's diet included cannibalism.

And it was kind of a morbidly captivating little object, a tiny snake in an amber liquid, coiled back and forth like a chain of infinity signs. Maybe he'd display it. He didn't think he could drink it.

"I remember you'd expressed an interest in expanding your knowledge of whiskeys," the Radio Demon went on, meandering over to inspect the table where Sir Pentious had left his documents from the compound. "Thought you might like to try something a little more exotic."

Sir Pentious had expressed an interest in expanding his knowledge as a thinly-veiled attempt to get the Radio Demon to invite him out for drinks and/or gauge his willingness to be invited out. (He really _had_ been repressing this for a while.) It hadn't worked. He was pleasantly surprised that the Radio Demon had remembered it anyway. "Well. It certainly is _that._ " Sir Pentious regarded the bottle another moment, then waved over an Egg Boi to instruct him to take it somewhere safer. He didn't want to stick it in a coat pocket and risk it breaking during their raid.

"So! Learn anything interesting?" With a twirl of one finger, the Radio Demon had the pile of papers floating in the air and spread out.

"Nothing that will be of use to us," Sir Pentious said, which was true, although didn't necessarily mean that there wasn't anything useful in the documents. He hadn't had much in the way of the ability to focus. "Oh, but you might find this amusing—I found what seems to be something of a little religious manifesto. They seem to be under the impression that they're in Hell not because they've _actually_ been judged as sinful, but as a _test_ of their _faith_."

The Greek chorus laughed for the Radio Demon. Sir Pentious had thought that seemed like his sort of humor. "Ha! Isn't it absolutely astounding how far the damned will go to deny that they deserve damnation! If there were an eighth deadly sin, it would be 'willful denial.'"

" _Hha_. If that were a damnable offense, half of Hell's residents would be here for it."

"And, ironically, they'd deny that's what they're here for." The Radio Demon neatly stacked up the papers and offered them back with a charming smile. "So. Have a battle plan to share before we head out?"

"Not this time," Sir Pentious said, taking the papers back. "From what I saw, even the Alpha Site is full of rank amateurs. Either one of us alone is _far_ too strong for anything they could throw at us. I've plotted an approach route to hide the airship and picked our drop site, but after that the plan is 'shoot things and break spines until they stop fighting back.'"

"So we're doing it my way! Wonderful!" The Radio Demon spun on one foot to face the door. Sir Pentious's heart leaped into his throat, his gaze riveted to the hem of the Radio Demon's coat as it flared out with his spin, hoping for another quick glance of his hidden tail...

But his coat didn't quite get that high. And now Sir Pentious felt foolish. Come now, show a little dignity and respect. He slithered up to the Radio Demon's side as he headed out into the hall.

"Not that I mind going by your plans, of course," the Radio Demon went on as they headed toward the bridge. "It's quite a thrilling challenge, sticking to a script when none of the other combatants are eager to play the roles you've assigned them. But I do thrive best in pure anarchy!" He spread his arms wide, as if welcoming in a complete breakdown of the rule of law. "No strategy, no tactics, no sense of order whatsoever—just chaos and horrors as far as the eyes can see!" His morbid declaration was underlined by the disembodied sound of...

"Is that crumpling paper?" Sir Pentious asked, gesturing vaguely at the air between them where he thought the sound was coming from.

The Radio Demon's arms dropped back to his sides. "I was going for the crackle of hellfire. Not convincing?"

"Hm. If anything, it sounded more like a campfire."

"I'll work on that." After a moment of quiet thought (or as quiet as the Radio Demon ever got—humming to himself along with a few bars of something with staccato piano and ominous strings) he said, "How's this?" and snapped his fingers to herald the return of the fire sound.

"Oh, yes, _far_ more menacing. What did you do with it?"

"Deepened the fire sound, added some wind in the background." As they entered the bridge, he tilted his head with a click to turn the sound off. The Egg Bois manning the ship in Sir Pentious's absence quickly vacated the controls at his approach, and even more quickly vacated the room at the Radio Demon's approach. "You know, you're the only one who critiques my technique? I wouldn't be making any improvement as a sound effects artist at all if not for you!"

Sound effects artist. Sir Pentious filled away the new modern terminology along with the praise. "Probably because everyone else is too afraid to criticize you."

"Probably so." The Radio Demon took the Egg Bois' stairs down to the front of the bridge and sauntered up to the observation window. "But _you_ aren't. I've always wondered about that. I know you're certainly _more_ than smart enough to know what I could do to you if I wanted. Do you think your airships are a match for my abilities?"

Something about the way the Radio Demon emphasized " _more_ " made Sir Pentious want to straighten his back and lift his head just a little bit higher. (Quite a few of the things the Radio Demon said made him feel like that.) "I'd rather not waste the resources trying to find out." No, he didn't think he'd win that fight; which was the reason why he'd sought a non-aggression pact with the Radio Demon in the first place. To keep his most valuable assets safe until he _had_ invented the kind of power that could go toe-to-toe with the sort of supernatural foes he found down here. "Rather, it's because I'm also smart enough to keep sight of the big picture."

"That being?"

"We're in _Hell_." Sir Pentious heaved himself higher on his tail to lean over his controls, grinning. "That means there's nothing you can possibly do to me that I can't recover from. What do I have to fear from peeving you a little?"

As Sir Pentious spoke, the Radio Demon had turned away from the view below to glance back at him. "You have _such_ a... how do I put it. An unconventional sort of dark optimism about you. Do you know that?"

"Oh, I know." And he judged people who didn't share it.

"You don't even fear, say, risking the loss of a powerful ally?"

"It'd be your loss and you know it."

The Radio Demon chuckled and turned back to the view. After a moment, watching the world fly by below, tapping his foot, he began quietly playing "Ride of the Valkyries" to himself. Sir Pentious hissed a laugh.

After another moment, Sir Pentious started humming along.

###

"So! Final judgment on your sensational walking tank?"

"I don't like it."

The little cult leader had a small temple/house on a mountainside ledge that put him just above the roofs of the other buildings in his cult's compound. That temple was now rubble, and the ledge was Sir Pentious and the Radio Demon's vantage point as they watched the compound burn below.

"No?! After all the work you put into it?"

"It makes me _seasick,_ " Sir Pentious griped. "Swaying from side to side with every step—"

"Careful, your entire ssspeech is about to disssolve into sssibilantsss." The Radio Demon underscored his warning with a rattlesnake rattle.

Sir Pentious hissed at the tank's radio, then resolved to enunciate better. He wouldn't bother for most people, but the Radio Demon only ever brought his hiss up when he was bordering on incomprehensibility.

Although the fact that they were talking over radio probably didn't help. He unlatched and opened the round window and bent down to stick his head out, arms crossed on the window frame. "I _tried_ to make it follow natural walking patterns as much as possible. There's even a suspension system under the cockpit designed to emulate the way human vertebrae move!"

"Really?" The Radio Demon immediately bent over to look under the tank's chassis.

Sir Pentious blindly curled an arm underneath to point. "Somewhere around there."

"Well, isn't that something!"

"So I don't know if I need to invent a better gyroscopic system for the cockpit, or if I've just forgotten that that's what walking feels like." Or if it was the fact that, between the tea and the Vin Mariani, he was currently being powered by caffeine, cocaine, and wine. He'd noticed the tank's swaying yesterday, but it hadn't made him this nauseous.

"I can't help you with a gyroscopic system." The Radio Demon straightened out. "But, as someone with very recent experience with walking, I can help you confirm or rule out the second possibility!"

Sir Pentious slowly frowned. "And... how would you do that, exactly?"

The Radio Demon leaned close enough to Sir Pentious that he had to pull his head back into the tank "Why, how do you think?" He wrapped his hands around the window frame on either side of Sir Pentious's elbows. "By taking it for a test drive, of course!"

"What?! _You?_ You'd crash it."

"Possibly. But! I bet I'd be less likely to if I had a copilot." He pulled himself up on his toes, peering around inside the bottom of the tank. "There's plenty of room. You're flexible, I'm... _less_ flexible, but flexible enough."

"Are you _serious?!_ "

The Radio Demon grinned giddily. "I might be."

For a moment, Sir Pentious stared at him, absolutely dumbfounded by the suggestion. Sir Pentious had only built enough space for himself to coil up and comfortably maneuver around. Surely the Radio Demon didn't want both of them crammed in the tiny space, practically on top of each other—

It occurred to Sir Pentious, in a flash of what was either divine inspiration or some stupendous wishful thinking, that the Radio Demon's suggestion that they should attempt to pilot the walking tank together might be his version of Sir Pentious's hinting that he might like to learn more about whiskey. And Sir Pentious would be an absolute fool to pass up that incredibly slim possibility. "You know what? Fine."

The Radio Demon's eyes literally lit up. A triumphant trumpet sting played.

Sir Pentious slid out of his seat and tried to figure out how to fold his tail up in the space around the chair so that he could get his torso upright in the narrow gap beside the chair and serve as backseat driver. The Radio Demon didn't even wait for Sir Pentious to settle himself before tossing his cane in and scrambling to get into the narrow space through the window over Sir Pentious's tail.

He was so overeager to get inside that it took him three attempts to coordinate his gangly limbs enough to haul himself into the seat. At one point, his footing slipped and he landed fully straddling the widest point of Sir Pentious's tail— _oh good lord_ — _was that tail fur he was feeling_ —before he unfortunately managed to haul himself back up. It took Sir Pentious several more seconds to recover.

When they were finally situated, Sir Pentious was doubled up in a horseshoe shape around the front and sides of the chair, and the Radio Demon had to sit with his bent legs held over Sir Pentious's tail and his feet braced on either side of the window frame. Although it required Sir Pentious to be turned backwards and to have to twist around in order to see out the window, he was careful to keep the underside of his tail turned toward the floor and away from the Radio Demon. Just—just in case. To be safe. They were one unexpectedly abrupt stop away from the Radio Demon sliding forward off his chair and accidentally seating himself upon Sir Pentious's tail, and should that happen Sir Pentious did _not_ want the Radio Demon to collide with physical evidence of how excited Sir Pentious was by the possibility of that very thing happening.

"Well," he said, trying to push away the mental image of the Radio Demon straddling his tail again. "This is a disaster waiting to happen."

"It's only the prototype," the Radio Demon said cheerfully, two little glowing red spotlights sweeping through the tank as his gaze scanned over the controls and handwritten notes. "Anyway, didn't you say something earlier about how nothing can happen in Hell that we can't recover from?"

"Sure, but that doesn't mean it won't be a disaster."

That begged the question of exactly what sort of ride this _was_ going to be. Of course, as stated, ripe with potential for disaster. But also ripe with quite a few other forms of potential. Despite their best efforts to maximize each other's personal space, they were _very_ cozy in here. Practically close enough to feel each other's breath on their faces. Sir Pentious would, of course, wait for the Radio Demon to make the first move. Gentleman though the Radio Demon was, these younger generations were _so_ much handsier than Sir Pentious's had been; so if it got to the point where Sir Pentious felt prepared to make the first move, that would be a sure indication that the Radio Demon had no intentions to do so, or else he would have already. But if the Radio Demon _did_... Sir Pentious ruminated on how best to advance proceedings. He'd so like to coil around him properly, but would it be weird to get his tail involved immediately? No no—if the Radio Demon was at all into Sir Pentious then he _had_ to be into the tail, Sir Pentious was _sixty percent_ tail, not being into the tail would preclude the possibility of attraction altogether—

After examining the controls, the Radio Demon leaned forward and took the lever that controlled the walking speed of the tank. "So how does this thing work, is this the joystick?" He pushed it all the way forward.

The tank charged at full speed off the ledge.

Sir Pentious grabbed at the Radio Demon's arm, tightened his doubled-up tail around him, and let out something between a scream and a hysterical laugh.

And he finally learned what the Radio Demon's terrified smile looked like.

###

The Radio Demon did, indeed, crash the tank.

But, to his credit, it took him another five minutes.

They were the longest five minutes of Sir Pentious's afterlife.

###

"Drive a tank." The Radio Demon was laying flat on his back on the ground. "Check that one off my to-do list." Somewhere, a cash register _ka-ching_ sound played. The Radio Demon mumbled to himself, "No, that's not a checkmark sound." He had been laying on the ground for ten minutes.

"I don't think checkmarks make sounds." Sir Pentious was hanging halfway over the tank's window frame. The tank was hanging halfway over a knocked-down spotlight tower.

The Radio Demon tried to shrug and winced, one corner of his mouth twitching.

Sir Pentious attempted to carefully lower himself out of the tank, lost his grip, and landed face first on the ground with his tail noodling up on top of him, like toothpaste squeezed from a tube into a little pile. Good enough. He was on the ground.

The Radio Demon's Greek chorus laughed at his landing. "A spectacular dismount. Ten out of ten."

"Shut your mouth, Gigglemug."

There was a zipper sound that was probably supposed to indicate the gigglemug in question zipping his obnoxious giggling mug shut.

Sir Pentious slowly unbundled his long tail, pushed himself upright, and checked himself over to make sure all his important parts were still attached. He momentarily panicked when he patted his head and realized his hat was missing, before remembering he'd left it in his room.

"Reconsidering the whole 'no harnesses on the seat' thing yet?"

That zipper hadn't lasted very long. "No, not at all. I'm not adding a harness."

The Radio Demon lifted his head to give Sir Pentious a look somewhere between disbelief and outrage. (The Radio Demon liked to think that he was so unreadable with that fake smile of his. His eyes gave away a lot more than he realized. Reading him just took practice.) Slowly, he said, "I was ejected. Out the window." He emphatically punctuated his statement with the sound of glass shattering.

"And therefore, you were _not_ inside the tank when it caught fire. You're welcome."

" _It didn't catch fire!_ "

"It _could_ have."

"You, sir, are obsessed with this hypothetical tank fire."

"You aren't concerned _enough_ about the potential of a fire," Sir Pentious said airily. "Clearly _you've_ never burned alive. As for me, I would far rather be ejected out a thousand windows than stuck inside a burning vehicle, thank you _very_ much."

The Radio Demon was silent.

 _Too_ silent. Sir Pentious gave him a suspicious look. "What?"

"I didn't know you..." He clicked over to another station and started over. "I thought you were taken out by some sort of special military unit."

"They did happen to be in the vicinity when I set myself on fire, yes."

"You set _yourself_ on fire?!"

"What are they _teaching_ in schools?" Sir Pentious sighed in exasperation, rolling his eyes. "You go to all the effort of orchestrating the most spectacularly over-the-top death since the stabbing of Caesar, and nobody bothers to remember it. The disrespect. I ask you, what's the point of trying to leave a legacy of evil?"

The Radio Demon sat up gingerly, rubbing the back of his neck. "If it's any consolation, odds are twenty to one they spelled my first name wrong in my obituary."

Was Sir Pentious about to uncover another sliver of the Radio Demon's mysterious history? Now that _was_ a fine consolation. "To ensure I don't make the same mistake, exactly how _is_ your first name spelled?"

"R-A-D-I-O." The Greek chorus laughed.

Sir Pentious shot him an exasperated look. He shot back a tired smirk that entirely made up for the momentary exasperation.

The Radio Demon stood and stretched, cracking his back. "They usually misspell it with a Y, you see," he said, gaze fixed to Sir Pentious's face.

Sir Pentious deliberately deepened his exasperated look. "Is that so."

"Yes indeed." He paused a moment, watching carefully as Sir Pentious fought to maintain his annoyed expression. "Rad-yo."

Sir Pentious snorted and giggled. " _Rad-yo_."

The Radio Demon's smile stretched wider.

"Stop—stop that. Come on." Sir Pentious turned away from his stupid grin, slithering toward one of the now quite thoroughly crushed cult's few still-standing buildings. "After all the trouble we went to for these idiots, I want to see if they actually have anything worth stealing."

The Radio Demon quickly caught up to him, summoning his cane back to his side with a quick gesture.

As they entered the dark building—must've crushed a generator somewhere during the carnage—the Radio Demon said, "Why don't you add a harness that automatically comes apart in a fire?"

Sir Pentious almost gave him another glare, then stopped and thought about it. "That wouldn't be too difficult, actually."

The Radio Demon beamed. "Happy to have contributed to the prototyping process." With a tap of his cane, he called up some sort of dark lighting that didn't so much _illuminate_ the dark room as make it unnaturally glow. "Speaking of which—for the record, it wasn't just you. The tank definitely has a noticeable sway to it."

"Ah. Wonderful. Thank you for the feedback."

"Any time." With a wave, the Radio Demon disappeared through a doorway, leaving Sir Pentious in a room full of machine guns. He started going through them to see how shoddy they looked.

It dawned on Sir Pentious that the actual question that had driven him to agree to squeeze into the walking tank with the Radio Demon—whether or not his attraction was reciprocated—had remained woefully unanswered.

But then... How old was Sir Pentious now? Lord, he was pushing a hundred twenty, wasn't he? If _failing_ to find out the precise nature of the Radio Demon's feelings for him was going to result in more absolute shenanigans like this... he thought he could go another hundred twenty years without knowing.

In a singsong voice, the Radio Demon called, "Oh, _Sir Pentious_."

"What?"

The Radio Demon returned, grinning like a child who'd just found a basketful of Easter eggs. Except the Easter eggs were teapot- and canteen-made makeshift grenades. "You don't need these, do you? They don't meet your exacting weapon engineer standards?"

"What in the _world_ are you going to do with those."

"I had a thought! If you're finished with the walking tank prototype, perhaps it's time to test its durability in the face of more heavy-duty artillery?"

By the third grenade, the Radio Demon got pretty good at timing the explosions to the 1812 Overture.

Oh no, Sir Pentious wouldn't trade this for anything.

And for the rest of the things he wished he could have from the Radio Demon... Well, he had vaseline and a vivid imagination. And he was _sure_ he'd get another glimpse at his tail one day.

**Author's Note:**

> Various things referred to in the fic:
> 
> \- "the Radio Demon's imaginary invisible Greek chorus": Sir Pent's prob never learned the terms "studio audience" or "laugh track"  
> \- "What if the tank catches fire and I can't get the harness open?": have you ever met someone who refuses to wear a seatbelt with that as their argument. Also: wear your seatbelts, kids.  
> \- "a comically over-the-top dying wail of pain": He's just playing the [Wilhelm scream](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdbYsoEasio) over and over. I don't know how he got a copy of it in Hell.  
> \- "a snatch of some melodic harp tune": he's (unconsciously) playing [Harpo's harp solo](https://youtu.be/nQ2RyRgqsuA?t=92) (starts at 1:42) both because that fits Alastor's current emotions and because he seems like a Marx bros fan.  
> \- "something about being a freakish man": the song Alastor's singing is [Freakish Man Blues](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DiklFkS-X0A) ([lyrics](https://lyrics.fandom.com/wiki/George_Hannah:Freakish_Man_Blues)), a 1930 song by an openly gay man. If you know the singer's gay the lyrics pretty clearly seem to refer to that, but they're ambiguous enough Alastor could relate to them either due to being ace or due to the fact that, like, he's a freak. The fact that he knows the song means in life he was familiar with contemporary queer music.  
> \- "where there's women, wine, and song": this is indeed a song reference to [I'm A Member of the Midnight Crew](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ARLPT5rKjWo) (lyrics in the video description), which would've come out when Alastor was a preteen. It seems like it would appeal to his sense of humor before his sense of humor turned toward things like mass suicide.  
> \- "a whole chamber orchestra": it's like, more of a jazz band, but Sir Pent is far less familiar with jazz bands than he is with chamber orchestras.  
> \- "a jar of vaseline": petroleum jelly was discovered in 1859 and Vaseline was first sold in 1870. It _is_ safe to use on snakes—including snake genitalia, because it's sometimes used by veterinarians while checking the sex of a snake. I looked this up for you, readers. I did it for you.  
> \- "hemipenis": if you didn't already know, it is my _great_ pleasure to inform you that snakes have two penises.  
> \- [Vin Mariani](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vin_Mariani) is an actual thing and is actually made with cocaine & wine. Coca wines were considered medicinal during the time Sir Pentious would've been alive, and apparently he still thinks they are. Obviously, they never would've been banned in Hell, because it's Hell. Also: don't do drugs, kids.  
> \- "Achilles, Sappho, and Tiresias": in case your mandatory 13-year-old Greek mythology phase _didn't_ turn this info up, Achilles is hella gay, Sappho is hella lesbian, and Tiresias... Tiresias had a lot going on, but I'm gonna go with hella genderqueer. In Victorian times, "Greek love" was a euphemism for mlm relationships to make them sound classical and classy.  
> \- "a sad trombone noise": [this one](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQeezCdF4mk).  
> \- "Snake-infused whiskey": [this is a real thing](https://www.thailandunique.com/snake-whiskey-wine/snake-wine-whiskey).  
> \- "something with staccato piano and ominous strings": an arrangement of [Mysterioso Pizzicato](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tlwfUGrPiy0) ([longer version](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZF-qIha3A8)), a song used for villains during the silent film era so often it became a cliche. Alastor's using it to psych himself up for Making Evil Sound Effects.  
> \- "That means there's nothing you can possibly do to me that I can't recover from": I included this line specifically to hurt people who have read Cold Day In Hell. Hey y'all.  
> \- "sssibilantsss": please assume that Sir Pent was hissing this whole fic but it wasn't reflected in the dialogue because the fic's from his perspective and he doesn't notice his own hiss.  
> \- "a triumphant trumpet sting": [this one](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6_R6x5pbpg) but like, less dumb  
> \- "Gigglemug": this is actual Victorian-era slang for a person who's always smiling.  
> \- "they spelled my first name wrong": the most common spelling of "Alastor" is Alistair. There's 100 more spellings.  
> \- "some sort of dark lighting": Sir Pent just doesn't know what a blacklight is called; Alastor's doing the same blacklight thing from his song in the pilot.
> 
> The post for this fic on tumblr is [here](https://ckret2.tumblr.com/post/190728446452/pretty-little-tail). Comments/reblogs there are very welcome (as are comments here)!


End file.
